John Milton Moore never shrank from digging up wrongdoing in local government as a reporter, asking the question on everyone's mind as a columnist and tele­vision host, or softening his words when running suburban Houston newspapers.

"He wouldn't hesitate to say exactly what was on his mind in the plainest language," said Mary Ellen Brennan, who worked for Moore and his wife, Marie, at the Friendswood and Pear­land Journals in the 1980s. "But you always knew that it came from a good thought that he had."

Moore died Monday in New Braunfels at the age of 94 after battling Alzheimer's for almost two years, said daughter Nancy Moore of Austin.

He was also frank but caring with his family. Nancy Moore remembers her father buying her a horse for her seventh birthday even though she had never thought to want one.

"He wanted me to have horses like he had as a kid," she said.

Once when she fell off the horse, he simply told her to get back on.

"There were times when his West Texas side came out," she said.

Once a cowboy

Moore was born in Christoval in 1918 when the community south of San Angelo only had about 200 residents. Growing up, he cowboyed for his uncle to help make ends meet and worked for the high school paper.

In the 1950s, he wrote a column for the Post and hosted a show for KTRH called, "John Moore's Place," for which he traveled the state exploring Texas culture. In the next decade, he led the Post's courthouse coverage and won awards for investigative projects on corruption in city and county governments, which led to grand jury inquiries and indictments.

Moved to Friendswood

The Moores moved to Friendswood in 1956, and published three suburban newspapers in the area after leaving the Post.

Brennan, who eventually became general manager of the Moores' papers, remembers John and Marie, who died in 2007, always said family came first.

"Whatever happened, they could work around an employee's emergency," Brennan said, recalling when she was encouraged to take time off to care for her son. Doctors feared the junior high football player had developed bone cancer.

"John and Marie never blinked," Brennan said. "They said, 'Take the time you want. We'll work around it and help in anyway we can.' "

Besides daughter Nancy Moore of Austin, he is survived by another daughter, Katrinka Moore of New York City.